note, just then the trooper close behind us had been
wounded by a shell fragment. He was swearing awfully and fighting with
his horse. The shells were falling around us about two to the minute.

"Luckily the Alphonsist shells are not much better than our own. But
women are funny. I was afraid the maid would jump down and clear out
amongst the rocks, in which case we should have had to dismount and catch
her. But she didn't do that; she sat perfectly still on her mule and
shrieked. Just simply shrieked. Ultimately we came to a curiously
shaped rock at the end of a short wooded valley. It was very still there
and the sunshine was brilliant. I said to Dona Rita: 'We will have to
part in a few minutes. I understand that my mission ends at this rock.'
And she said: 'I know this rock well. This is my country.'

"Then she thanked me for bringing her there and presently three peasants
appeared, waiting for us, two youths and one shaven old man, with a thin
nose like a sword blade and perfectly round eyes, a character well known
to the whole Carlist army. The two youths stopped under the trees at a
distance, but the old fellow came quite close up and gazed at her,
screwing up his eyes as if looking at the sun. Then he raised his arm
very slowly and took his red _boina_ off his bald head. I watched her
smiling at him all the time. I daresay she knew him as well as she knew
the old rock. Very old rock. The rock of ages--and the aged
man--landmarks of her youth. Then the mules started walking smartly
forward, with the three peasants striding alongside of them, and vanished
between the trees. These fellows were most likely sent out by her uncle
the Cura.

"It was a peaceful scene, the morning light, the bit of open country
framed in steep stony slopes, a high peak or two in the distance, the
thin smoke of some invisible _caserios_, rising straight up here and
there. Far away behind us the guns had ceased and the echoes in the
gorges had died out. I never knew what peace meant before. . .

"Nor since," muttered Mr. Blunt after a pause and then went on. "The
little stone church of her uncle, the holy man of the family, might have
been round the corner of the next spur of the nearest hill. I dismounted
to bandage the shoulder of my trooper. It was only a nasty long scratch.
While I was busy about it a bell began to ring in the distance. The
sound fell deliciously on the ear, clear like the morning light. But